Thanksgiving

I finally moved into my house last weekend and besides the sewage pump leaking into the front yard, everything is just peachy! My family came over to visit and we all worked in our own way to help set up my house. I did a decent amount of landscaping before the snow hit so I'm pretty happy about that. My mom sewed me some curtains. It took her so long and she worked so hard on them I really appreciate that. My dad helped out all around and made sure we were all adequately fed. And my sister she did just about as much manual labor as I did!

I got AT&T U-Verse phone, cable, and internet the Thursday before thanksgiving and it was down almost every day for almost every reason apparently. They say 3300 feet from the hub is right at the threshold for the service. So I hope it will stay up this time! I need to remember to call them and get refunded for the time my service was down. There's no sense in paying for service which I didn't have.

I hung out with K most of the week so that was a lot of fun. We celebrated Thanksgiving with both families. All the food was delicious. I made sure to eat a big piece of all 3 desserts. There was chocolate cheese cake, pumpkin banana torte, and pecan pie. All made with tested recipies. So I loved all three! I ate way too much the last 4 days or so, but oh man was it great spending so much time with family. I really am thankful for all I have.

house update!

Well I can finally say that my house is close to being ready to live in! K and I have been starting to unpack things and clean up a bit. So hopefully by thanksgiving the house will be fully occupiable! But that's not the big update. After much fighting, I finally have a front porch being put up. It's not much, but it definitely helps the front curb appeal. Now It looks like a country farm house or cottage or something :) I think that's pretty marketable in such a scenic area, well I'd hope! The picture does not show the end product of the porch. The end product will have siding, and shingles of course! And the columns will be white aluminum.

More of my life

Well I ended up going to Busse Woods again to take advantage of the beautiful fall colors. I got quite a few good shots off too! One thing that was annoying is when K and I found a tree we wanted to take photographs under, a minute or so later an older couple with an SLR and a point and shoot stood near the tree looking like they were going to photograph it. We were there for no more than 5 or so minutes. And the old man blurts out "we're losing our light!" Nothing corteous, nothing subtle. Just blunt and rude. Apparently we were at the only tree in the whole gosh darn park and this guy couldn't fathom taking a picture of another tree! I didn't put up a fight because I had gotten off several shots already and the sun had fallen behind a tall building in the distance. I kind of felt happy that they actually did lose their light because of how rude the guy was! But really, it was a very beautiful tree.

My house is getting even closer to being completed. It'll be any day now. I'm sure! I've been saying that for the past couple months, but one of these days I'll find myself telling the truth and I'll actually move in. Although I have my doubts sometimes :)

I'm not even excited anymore

In a perfect time to be blogging my rants about building a new home and all the headaches that I never thought would come with it. I have written nothing. It's been a surprisingly scary last month. So many things that I couldn't have imagined would happen went wrong. But it looks like I'll still get a house and things are mostly smoothed over for the time being. But all I can say is, when times get rough, your builder can be a complete ass, and the bank, well they can make your life a living hell. But oh well, you live and you learn. I have had a major life lesson this month. You never ever trust anybody you are paying. They're only being nice to you because you are paying them. And if you run into a problem, the bank certainly doesn't have your back.

I'm not excited about his house anymore and I just want it to be done with. But unfortunately, I can't even set any deadlines when it will be done anymore because my builder keeps completing work so slowly. You'd think he'd want to get done and get the rest of his money and be out of my life, but somehow I think it brings them pleasure to string me along. I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense.

Wow, almost a month since my last post

So the house is finally there. I'm sure it's not that interesting to you, but this is what it looks like...

And we have walls!

I think this will be the most dramatic change for awhile. The cement now has to cure for about a week and then they will bring in fill to cover pretty much everything you see minus some inches at the top. Seeing how much dirt is missing, it's almost hard to imagine how it will look with all the dirt filled in! After this comes the framing of the walk-out basement, cement slab pouring, plumbing rough-ins, sewer grinder pump installation, and finally the modular pieces of the home can be set. The modular pieces won't be delivered until late July, but it'll be fun to see when it happens. At that point the house will be almost done!

Productive at work

I've been super productive at work this week. It's great having a job where you actually have to use your brain every once in awhile. I got to fix some bugs in a SW program that we're working on. You know, programming may not be my dream job, but I forgot how much better work is when you have to think just a little bit. I'm already satisfied with my new job! Now if only I could find a house to live in that I actually was impressed with when I went to the showing!

home buying

Well let me tell you, it's complicated enough without trying to haggle with people and pretending you're not interested when you really are very interested. I really wish I knew how to do this, but I don't so I am just trying my best.

Long story short, a person was selling a home and the lot next to the home. I just wanted the lot, but the person is retiring and moving to Florida, so they really wanted to sell the home. The Realtor tells me that they'd throw in the lot if I bought the house for just over list price. This would've been an amazing deal. At first I thought I couldn't afford it because I'd have to sell the house right away. So I made an offer on just the lot. And then I changed my mind and said I wanted to buy the house and have the seller throw in the lot too. But since the offer on the lot was a certain amount, the seller had become sure that they could sell the house alone for more than I could afford to pay for the lot at the price I offered plus the house price. So to clarify, because the seller knew I wanted the lot, the seller got greedy and decided to say that they won't sell for anything but $40,000 more than their original verbal offer. So I backed out completely. I felt cheated, but I think I did the right thing. If they are desperate enough, they'll come back!

stuff

The 4th was pretty fun, I got to watch Disturbia and then see the local fireworks up close. It was a lot of fun. I also learned that my community has a spa! I thought we only had a pool. I have been missing out!

On Friday Kristin made a peach pie. My family came to visit on Saturday and they all loved her pie. It is very good. Saturday, my family and I went on a 3-hour cruise on Lake Michigan and saw the Chicago fireworks and had an all around good time. I really enjoyed that. Sunday was just a relaxed day and I didn't get very much done, but I did get to put chicken wire over my pot that some bird/rodent kept digging in. That'll learn em!

Today I feel oddly unsettled today. Something just isn't sitting right. I just want to get out of the office, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I'm probably just upset about the whole house buying expense thing. I don't want to be here or anywhere today. I wish I had a life fast forward button again today.

Home Taxes

I'm even more excited about building a home now because I just found out that if I finish building my house in January 2008, I will not have to pay the full property taxes (accessed in January 2008) until June of 2009 for the 2009 tax year! I will have to pay taxes based on the lot value in June of 2008, but that will be closer to 25% of the taxes based on the home's value plus the lot!

So to summarize all the useful information I have learned so far:

• The tax you pay in 2008 is for the tax accrued in 2007
• Property tax is normally 2.25-3% of the accessed market value
• Primary Mortgage Insurance (PMI) will be charged if you pay any amount under 20% down payment. It will be less, the more you put down.
• Interest paid on your mortgage is tax deductible
  
  For example on a 200,000 property with 20% down, you'll pay $10,680 in interest, meaning you can deduct that amount from your taxable income for federal taxes. This means you'll get about $1560 back in taxes!